New Owners Reinvigorate Hedges Inn

Hoteliers Andrew and Sarah Wetenhall’s latest takeover promises to be the hit of the summer. Will it deliver?

So far, so good.

The late Nikki Amey, my Sherpa guide to all things Hamptons, used to wax poetic about the Irving Hotel, which, until its 1974 demolition, was steps from the Hill Street house in Southampton Village where she would hold court every afternoon at cocktail o’clock.

“Oh, the fun we had,” she said. “We’d drink and dance and see the most interesting people — and it was in staggering distance to our front door!”

The one-time grand dame of summer resorts, the Irving boasted 100 guest rooms and a register that included Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, along with assorted du Ponts, Astors, Vanderbilts and Fords. And, like so many others of its ilk, it served as the primordial pool for the Ralph Lauren/Martha Stewart summerhouse aesthetic that we all take for granted today, what with its white wicker furniture, breezy organdy curtains and tissue-thin wall-to-wall carpeting covering creaky wooden floors.

Nothing ever really replaced the Irving.

Other Hamptons hostelries have come and gone. The cyclical attempts to glamorize any number of the forlorn establishments lining Montauk Highway from west to east have tended to result in little more than short-lived lipstick on pigs, despite the input of pros such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and even the above-mentioned Martha (remember daughter Alexis’s Bridgehampton Motel?) They all end up feeling like imposters of fine hotels, mainly because they universally lack real hoteliers.

Enter Andrew and Sarah Wetenhall, owners of Palm Beach’s most Instagrammable Colony Hotel. With their purchase of East Hampton’s Hedges Inn, the East End finally has what it’s been lacking since the Irving closed: a hotel run by hoteliers.

Can the Hedges be the reincarnation of the Irving? Well, with only 13 guest rooms, it’ll only be a drop in the bucket — but oh, what a drop!

Built as a boarding house in 1873 by John D. Hedges, it was acquired by socialite Mrs. Harry Hamlin in 1924, who reopened the property as The Hedges Inn in 1935.

In 1954, Hamlin sold the inn to Henri Soulé, owner of the iconic New York restaurants Le Pavillon and La Côte Basque, who ran it until 1964 and made the Hedges a culinary destination of note. Then came six decades of flip-flop ownership with various attempts to be fabulous, most notably the failed plan to install an outpost of the hip NYC-based private club Zero Bond. Old guard East Hamptonites balked in bulk, but they were intrigued by what the Wetenhalls had done with the Colony: taking a rather meh hotel and puffing and fluffing it into a notable place to be seen. While their deep pockets obviously helped, more important was their uncanny instinct for alignments.

To meet Sarah, especially, is to encounter the definition of a charm offensive. First off, she’s unabashedly pretty — a breezy Midwestern blonde whose coiffure recalls the legendary actress Billie Burke in “The Wizard of Oz.” Impeccably dressed in colorful florals, she’s no shrinking violet, but rather a branding and marketing savant.

Knowing that the physical limitations of the landmarked Colony forced an “it is what it is” approach, Sarah wisely uploaded the hotel with boldfaced names and, more importantly, brands.

Before you knew it, Aerin Lauder was there hosting the kind of long-table dinners that get covered by Vogue. Dolce & Gabbana opened a pop-up installation, as did Bergdorf Goodman and British jeweler Asprey. Designer Celerie Kemble and her mom, Mimi McMakin, known as the go-to decorators for WASPy joints like the Everglades Club and the Gasparilla Inn, were engaged, employing miles of de Gournay wallpaper and Schumacher fabrics.

And then there’s Swifty’s, the second coming of the beloved Upper East Side bistro that serves as the hotel’s primary food and beverage entity, bringing its much-missed clubby crab cakes and creamed spinach back to rapturous diners.

This strategy of alignment has elevated the Colony to first place among the stylish set, in spite of its smallish rooms, tiny bathrooms and barely-there closets. But who cares? It’s all about the legendary trivia nights full of hard-partying preppies and the long-running Thursday evening happy hours that are a must-go for any blue blazer and velvet slipper-wearing gay man living in or visiting Palm Beach.

Clearly, the Wetenhalls are applying the Colony x Swifty’s playbook to the Hedges. First and foremost, Colony general manager Bruce Seigel, a Ritz Carlton-trained pro, has moved into the Hedges’ adjacent cottage for the summer to get things up and running. Colony regulars will recognize many other familiar faces, from the fresh-faced valets in pink polos to the heart and soul of Swifty’s, founder Robert Caravaggi — all on site in East Hampton to ensure a proper experience.

The inn’s public spaces were decorated several years ago by McCabe & McCabe Design in textbook Nancy Meyers movie chic: crisply painted millwork, espresso grasscloth and English-style upholstered pieces covered in organic neutrals. New to the buildout, however, are Nick Mele’s whimsical photographs and lots of Celerie Kemble’s “Hothouse Flowers,” an exploded botanical printed linen by Schumacher that covers all of Swifty’s tables.

Guest rooms and baths have been deep-cleaned (“You have no idea,” boasts Seigel) and puffed and fluffed with new bedding and towels. A full redo will commence in the fall. Lovely touches such as a fully stocked self-service snack bar and beach butler service have been added, along with a virtual mascot named Ahab, a nod to artist Jackson Pollock’s beloved standard poodle, resulting in an experience that’s as perfectly perfect as possible.

But such perfection comes at a price: For most summer weekends, nightly rates soar into the thousands, which is what the going rate is for Hamptons hotels these days, along with maddening minimum stays that are also the norm. Net net, a weekend at The Hedges Inn could easily top $10,000.

But, already, the best rooms for the best weekends have been booked. The same can be said for Swifty’s: On opening weekend, they had to turn down 400 requests on RESY, the restaurant booking app.

Those wishing to experience the Hedges without taking out a second mortgage will appreciate that Swifty’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. So for the price of avocado toast with two perfectly poached eggs ($32) or a toasted Goldberg’s bagel with cream cheese (perhaps a bit dear at $16), one can still enjoy the Wetenhall touch for a lot less than $10K. “We’ll even slice the bagel!” Seigel jokes.

This is the culmination of the Wetenhalls five-year search for an East End property.

They owned a house in East Hampton for 15 years before moving to Sag Harbor. With three kids — one teaching at sailing camp, another sniffing around the equestrian world, and the youngest in a local day camp — one would think that this particular household would be too busy to run not one but two hotels. But Andrew and Sarah remain unfettered.

“I rely on a great team,” Sarah says, “and copious amounts of mint tea, dry shampoo in a pinch, and the ability to laugh when things inevitably go sideways.”

But Hedges is no Fawlty Towers. “I’m a perfectionist, and I take our business seriously, as our guests trust us to deliver on a promise of luxury hospitality,” she continues. “It is a constant balancing act and one that, frankly, I am not always good at.”

Her perspective, however, belies Sarah’s Midwestern roots. “We are serving food and selling guest rooms, not saving lives,” she says. “Regardless … I try to be fully present and give it my all.”

Oh, fer sure, don’t cha know?

The Hedges Inn
73 James Lane
East Hampton, NY 11937
631-324-7101,thehedgeseasthampton.com